Handout used for Lounge at the Library, Graduate Education Week 2011 . Tools on this handout were part of the Scholarly Identity Tools Petting Zoo.

1. Graduate Education Week 2011
Managing Your Scholarly Identity
Connecting with colleagues. Job prospects. Funding opportunities. Eliminating academic (and researcher) misidentification.
Organizing your professional information. All of these benefits can result from successful management of your online
scholarly identity. The tools listed below (all free, and relatively simple to use) can help you present a positive public image of
yourself, and provide future employers and colleagues with the information that you want them to have. Although the list
below excludes social “voice” options, like blogs and Twitter, these can also be effective tools for managing your scholarly,
online identity.
Tools for Managing Scholarly Identity:
Google (yourself!): http://www.google.com/
Start controlling your scholarly and professional identity by viewing the current portrait of yourself on the Web. Use
Google profiles: https://profiles.google.com/, a simple way to start identifying yourself in the digital environment, a
Google profile allows you to list personal information and related links (e.g., to other profiles you create).
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/
Often considered a “professional Facebook,” this social networking site allows you to list employment, publications,
organizational affiliations, connect with past and future colleagues, and more.
Academia.edu: http://academia.edu/
Create a personal profile, follow colleagues’ research, and stay up to date on the latest papers published in your
area(s) of research. Site provides document uploading, usage statistics, and more!
Mendeley: http://www.mendeley.com/
Both a citation manager and a social networking site, Mendeley allows scholars to connect through in-depth profiles,
research interests, and publication records.
ResearcherID: http://www.researcherid.com/
Assigns a unique identifier to each author in ResearcherID, ensuring that works are correctly identified and providing
citation metrics for individual authors. Offers a registry of possible collaborators and publication lists.
Scholar Universe: http://www.scholaruniverse.com/
A database of scholar profiles (over 2 million). Search for yourself and update your profile.
Nature Network: http://network.nature.com/
Create a profile and connect with colleagues through forums and blogs; site also provides the option for creating
personalized “workbench” of online science tools.
ePortfolio @ VT: http://eportfolio.vt.edu/
Use eP @ VT to create a unique personal portfolio/web space showcasing your work and philosophies.
Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/
Share your professional and scholarly presentations and documents (like a CV) on a platform that tallies usage/viewer
statistics and provides embed codes for presentations you’d like to mount on a website.
About.me: https://about.me/
This site allows you to create a personal profile that will assemble links to ALL of the other profiles you’ve created,
giving you and others an overview of your personal information on the web.
Other Ideas:
Get a professional headshot through University Relations for visual consistency in your profiles:
http://www.unirel.vt.edu/photography/photo-request-form.html
Use sites like ClaimID or OpenID to create single log-ins for multiple sites, and control your identity
Contact Your Librarian(s):
Find your College Librarian: http://www.lib.vt.edu/instruct/clprg.html
Consult a subject guide: http://www.lib.vt.edu/help/subject-guides/
Contact us: http://www.lib.vt.edu/help/ask.html